Absract: The article presents the figure of Alexander Antonovich Bahanovich, a public and political figure from the Grodno region, who entered the history of the Belarusian national movement as an adventurer and an "impostor" who assumed the role of the head of the Belarusian People's Republic. On the other hand, excerpts from his letter to the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs and latert the member of Russian Political Conference S. D. Sazonov, denouncing "Belarusian nationalists", have long been used in the public space as an argument in favor of the artificiality of this movement itself.

Keywords: The Belarusian People's Republic, the archives of the BNR, the Belarusian national movement, refugees, the white movement